Countin’ flowers on the wall
That don’t bother me at all
Playin’ solitaire till dawn with a deck of fifty-one
Smokin’ cigarettes and watchin’ Captain Kangaroo
Now don’t tell me I’ve nothin’ to do.
-Flowers on the Wall by Statler Brothers

No, I really have nothing to do. And recently it has been driving me a little insane.  For much of January, I’ve been ill.  The kids have been ill.  Jeff’s been ill.  It’s been really cold.  I’m tired of wearing five layers.  I’m homesick.  I’m thinking ahead to swimsuit season.  So a month ago, I would have combated my loneliness by going for a run or walking the castle stairs or most definitely indulging in a giant chocolate bar dipped in peanut butter.  This month, I feel trapped in the house and the less I do in a day the worse I feel. I’ve been finding myself wasting time on the internet, daydreaming of life when we return.  I’ll look up houses for rent or jobs available or what’s new at the Science Center or what activities the girls could be enrolled in.  Since I have been here, I have gone on a few coffee dates with other moms wanting to practice their English but unfortunately, this month it’s been more missed dates than made ones.  I do have some ladies I can go running with…if I weren’t sick.  I take tennis lessons on Saturday mornings but we’ve either been gone or I’ve been sick.  I’m really looking forward to not being ill and the weather getting a little warmer.

And in reality, there isn’t much here for me to do even when I’m not ill.  It’s a small town and I don’t have a car to travel to a bigger one.  I do a lot of household chores; which are never ending and mind-numbing.  We have five plates and a dishwasher that doesn’t really work; even when I use the correct soap.  I make breakfast and walk the girls to school, go pick up groceries for the day, wash the dishes, write a blog (maybe), practice my Spanish online (maybe), do some laundry and then it’s time to go pick up the girls again for their two-hour lunch break.  Some days I’ll go to the post office, the bank or pharmacy.  I’ll make lunch for the girls and we’ll do a small amount of American schoolwork.  I’ll walk to the girls back to school for the second part of their day; which is also when all the shops close down for Siesta.  When it’s warmer this is when I had been going for a run or a hike or walk the castle stairs and taking a shower.

I try to stay motivated and busy.   I make to-do lists.  I’ve been trying to keep up on blog writing.  I’ve been trying to keep up on organizing my photo’s.  I’ll plan our vacations.  I might watch a Netflix documentary.  I had planned to start the Julian Micheals 30 day SHRED via youtube but I’ve been sick and I can’t walk to school without getting out of breath and coughing so Julian will have to wait.  I’ve read a few books.  I check face book about a hundred times a day.  I’m just downloaded the history book we would have read this year and will be reading it both as a read aloud to the kids and to myself.  It is a part of our homeschool curriculum that I have missed.  I learned to crochet and am working on an infinity scarf.  Shouldn’t I be entertaining myself with TED talks and learning some part of history that I’ve missed?  I could take some of the online Girl Scout modules so I’m ready to volunteer when I return!  I could be learning via podcasts!  With so much time, shouldn’t I be fluent in Spanish by now?

 

 

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